Cloned Meat, Frankenfood and Facts
Introduction
With all of
the controversy swirling around the cloned meat announcement by the
FDA, it was time to collect some facts and make some sense out of the
cloud of uncertainty.
Cloned meat identical to normal, study
says. The European Food Safety Authority Friday said it has concluded
that meat and milk from healthy cloned cattle and pigs is "very
unlikely" to pose risks to consumers, opening the door to possible
European sales of those controversial foods in the future. FDA unsure
about safety of cloned meat. FURTHERMORE, the Food and Drug
Administration is also set to rule that these CLONED meats and milk
will NOT have to be labeled as CLONED meat and milk. Like most things,
the FDA's statement that cloned meat and milk is safe means that it
won't kill you immediately.
As far as I know there is no cloned
meat sold today and it is unlikely to come anytime soon. I'm not sure
if the FDA will want the word "CLONED MEAT" on packaging, but I hope so.
Safety
Safety
isn't the only concern among consumers. The international scientific
consensus is clear: food from these animals and their offspring is as
safe to eat as any other food. The European Food Safety Authority
released its draft report Friday saying that meat and milk from cloned
animals are safe to eat, according to ViaGen. The FDA says meat and
milk from cloned animals are just as safe as products from livestock
bred the old-fashioned way.
Some now believe that Vegetarians may be the only ones safe in the future.
Industry
The
FDA's 678-page report was a victory for the biotechnology industry,
especially biotech companies CyAgra and Viagen, which have both
invested heavily in developing cattle- and pig-cloning technology.
There are currently about 570 cloned animals in the United States, but
the livestock industry has so far followed a voluntary ban on marketing
food from cloned animals.
Assessment
The
risk assessment document basically shows how the FDA review agreed with
that of the National Academy of Sciences report of 2002 that found meat
and milk from clones and offspring of clones of cattle, swine and goats
was safe. The finding is a strong signal that the Food and Drug
Administration will endorse the use of cloning technology for cattle,
goats, and pigs when it publishes a key safety assessment intended to
clear the way for formal approval of the products. Weiss called the
FDA's work "a weak risk assessment with people with a vested interest
from the industry side" participating. Last week the FDA issued draft
documents saying that the agency's risk assessment had judged meat from
cloned animals to be safe to eat.
Groups
Consumer
groups counter that many Americans are likely to be revolted by the
idea of serving clone milk to their children or tossing meat from the
progeny of clones onto the backyard grill. And when FDA convened its
own focus groups, it found a third of consumers would never eat food
from cloned animals, while another third weren't worried and the rest
fell somewhere in the middle. Meat or dairy products from cloned
animals or their offspring would however likely face deep-seated
opposition from consumers groups, some of whom still routinely refer to
foods such as genetically-modified corn as "Frankenfood". One big
question on the minds of groups like Hanson's is how these
abnormalities would affect the composition of milk and meat, whether it
could change the nutritional value or introduce some harmful component.
Many consumer and religious groups strongly oppose cloning, which takes
cells from an adult and fuses them with others before implanting them
in a surrogate mother. The first is safety -- some groups don't think
there's enough research to prove that cloned animals are safe to eat.
Some industry groups, such as the National Milk Producers Federation,
representing 45,000 dairy farmers across the country, described the
program as an encouraging step toward easing consumers' minds.
Conclusions
Cloned
meat will probably be identical to normal, study says. Cloned meat will
be bland, 0% fat and boring. Why do you think some people find the idea
of eat cloned meat alarming? It seems that not all of the facts are
available. The next issue would be the selling of cloned meat and
seeing if the public will put aside their moral and ethical concerns
and eat the cloned meat.
But I suspect sometime in the future
we'll see reports on cloned meat being "generally regarded as safe",
which is industry code for "We never really got around to fully testing
the meat for it's susceptibility for disease". ViaGenAnd the site says
this about a program to track cloned meat. One critic disagrees with
the FDA and will make sure to be very careful not to eat cloned meat.
If an outbreak of some consequence DOES OCCUR, how will you be able to tell what is in your freezer, natural or cloned meat?
And that is real food for thought!
Monte
Luxley is a health
conscious baby boomer involved in research of natural foods as
alternatives to synthetic allopathic treatments. http://www.ArthritisHelpTips.com
http://www.Essential-Oils-For-Health.com
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